2012's luckiest finds from attics, thrift stores and garage sales

January 26, 2013

From garage sales, thrift stores and their own attics, average people continue to stumble upon treasures right under their noses. Online auction site eBid (www.ebid.net) has compiled some of the most surprising, inspiring and valuable finds of 2012:

1. While cleaning his late grandfather's house in Ohio this June, Karl Kissner discovered a bundle of baseball cards over 100 years old. With mint-condition cards of Ty Cobb, Cy Young and Honus Wagner, among others, the set was called "the most significant find in the history of the hobby," by Chris Ivy of Heritage Auctions. The cards have been valued at more than $3 million.

2. Early in the year, an 81-year old South Carolina man - who is only willing to be identified by his middle name, "Leroy" - bought a painting for $3 at Goodwill. Having a good eye, he thought it might be worth "a couple hundred dollars" so he had it appraised. Turns out, it originated from a Flemish school in Amsterdam and was painted around 1650. The painting sold at auction in March for $190,000.

3. A Pomona, Calif., man was very happy to have saved an Atari 2600 game cartridge with its box and manual for more than 25 years. Considered the rarest of video games, his copy of "Air Raid" sold at auction in November for $33,433.

4. In May, Zach Bodish of Columbus, Ohio, paid $14 for what he assumed was a reproduction Picasso poster at the Volunteers of America thrift store. Researching it further, Bodish soon got a shock when he realized some red marks in the poster's corner could be Picasso's own signature and the poster proved to be an authentic original. He sold the print to a private buyer for $7,000.

5. Beth Feeback, a North Carolina resident, bought a $10 abstract painting at Goodwill. She was going to paint over it, but her friends urged her to Google some of the names on the back, "Weatherspoon Art Gallery" and "Ilya Bolotowsky". She soon learned that Bolotowsky was a well-known abstract painter who had fled Russia in the early 20th century and the painting titled "Vertical Diamond" is valued at around $20,000.

6. In August, Tennesee resident Stephon Tull was cleaning out his father's attic in Chattanooga when he stumbled onto something startling: an audio reel labeled, "Dr. King interview, Dec. 21, 1960." It turned out to be a never-before-heard interview with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., an amazing piece of history but also one with monetary value, as it was sold to a private collector for an undisclosed sum.

7. In October, a novice treasure hunter using his first-ever metal detector in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England, found 40 gold Roman coins. Ultimately, 119 more coins were found in the cache, for a total value of more than 100,000 British pounds ($162,000).

8. In November, some quick eyes at a Goodwill donation center in Seattle, noticed the quality of a donated picture. Some research proved it to be in fact a Salvador Dali etching, which was auctioned online by Goodwill and fetched $21,000.

9. Schoolteacher Jane Cordery in Basingstoke, Hampshire, England, was cleaning out her attic and found a forgotten painting that had been given as a gift years before. She emailed a photo to Christie's auction house which immediately identified it as a piece by Victorian artist William James Webbe, painted around 1856. Christie's appraised it at 70,000 pounds, ($113,000) but it ultimately sold at auction in December for 589,250 pounds ($955,000), a world record for the artist's works.